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I must have picked this up back in 1980 or so, and literally just slapped (Testors!) paint on it. It was pretty well beaten up, so I gave it a brief soak in lacquer thinner (not for the faint of heart!) and the old stuff sloughed right off. I originally planned to give him more pallid, vampire flesh, but then I found the old painting guides in the ddwzrd site. I had a change of heart and glazed him over to a greenish tone. Fun stuff, and just a blast painting my own stuff from 40+ years ago!

Continuing deeper into the dry steppe I cane across a brass dragon in its native habitat. I think she was keeping watch over a nearby nomadic tribe but she took off before I was able to ask. Another old piece of miniature history, this is the brass dragon from the 3rd and final dragon of the month series by Grenadier. The amount of energy put into this mini is pretty amazing and, like all its brethren, this dragon has stood the test of time. I painted this one using a basecoat of scale 75 metallic but then did all the highlight work using a wax metallic set I recently acquired on sale. Hope you like her; this series does have some seriously dramatic positions for the dragons, especially when you consider that these are all softer, lead based minis.

Another one finished up over the holiday weekend. This is from the second dragon of the month series that Grenadier did and contained a lot of really strange and interesting dragons that I am proud to own. This one came to me without a tongue and with damaged spines. I replaced the tongue but decided I liked the broken spines so I left them that way. I had fun with this. Again , not master work but fun and interesting to do and some day some adventurer is going to get snapped up like a bug from this guy!

I finally felt like I could sit at the painting desk yesterday, so I finished up this little group of 6 ancient goblins from Minifig’s first fantasy (Tolkien) range, sculpted around 1972. I’ve been spending effort on acquiring enough of these figures to stage a game for the past couple of years. Hopefully by 2019 sometime... As with any massed shield bearing troops, most of the effect comes from attention to the shields. Not much to see around back...

I have recently come into some very old (late-1980's) Ral Partha lead miniatures that I'm very excited to work on. The only problem: I have never, ever painted lead figures before. Would anyone be able to point me toward a resource with information about how to clean (soap and water?) and protect (against lead rot?) minis like these? Thanks in advance for sharing the wisdom.

So I spotted what looked like a sweet little wolfman, unpainted but inked a little over the metal and glued to a square of wood in a comics shop some while ago and bought it and took it home and pried it off the old base and discovered it said "Grenadier 1987." Score! Turns out it is a werejackal, coded MM93, and was first released as part of the set "Monster Manuscript Vol. XI" which also included the one Nosferatu-type vampire I didn't have in zer old days from the set of three I painted recently. Anyhow, I cleaned it up and painted it like a black-backed jackal 'cos they look cool. There is no WIP thread. Also I had a picture book of Zimbabwe and decided to play a little bit with backgrounds.

It's the surfing samurai ogre mage ... er ... just my P-65 Heavy Metal Ogre Mage. Yeah, the background was boring so I added a border. As you can see here, he's just basecoated and attached to a piece of slate which has been covered with ballast. I basecoated this guy a long time ago and shelved him because ... well, I wasn't ready to completely get into finishing him. I decided last night to pull him from the shelf of shame and resume work on him. I hooked him up to my holder ... then had to counter his weight with rocks, sand AND water ... he's a heavy bugger. I used craft paints at the time to basecoat him. I am okay with the basecoating and enjoy the palette I started. So, colors ... The green hakama pants and robe are Celery. His skin is Phthalo Blue. The Pack Cover is Lavendar. The Fur Jacket is Antique Gold. And the orange-like highlights are Deep Sea Coral(?) ... I think. Been a while. The ground is Sunflower Yellow. The gist of the color scheme was desaturated tones to start with. We'll see where this leads.

First off, many thanks to those who helped me identify some of the stumpers here. These are a couple of adventuring parties' worth of Old School lead figures and a few baddies, kindly slung my way by Doc Bedlam and the generous folks behind the Random Boxes O' Goodwill. One remains unidentified, but most are known. They mostly cluster around two dates, roughly 1980 or 1991. I added a few women figures of roughly the same vintage to round the parties out. Here are four classics from the utterly classic Grenadier set 5001, "Dungeon Explorers": the Bard, Paladin, Cleric Turning, and Ranger. These are: a wizard FF2-A from Heritage Models set 1302, "Evil Wizards and Ring Wraiths"; RAFM's 3903 Ranger (Female), Ral Partha 01-319; "Elf Thief 3 Stage" 319b (stage two); and a fighter from from the Grenadier set 1414 "Fighting Men Champions". The last group is: Grenadier A183, "Dwarf with Two-Handed Axe" from the Grenadier Set 1603, "Dwarves, Army of the Gold Mountain"; Ral Partha DF-122, "Female Thief with Dagger"; some glorious Ral Partha female fighter that I'm blanking on at the moment (watch this space), and an unknown ninja signed "Ridolfi" on the bottom of the base. These are some opponents: Goblin w/ Axe and Goblin w/ Sword from the Grenadier set AD&D 5002 "Monsters"; a Ral Partha D&D figure -- again, I have to double-check and he might not be intended to be a bad guy, but that's how I'm thinking of him; and the Metal Magic C1017c, "Witch with Cat".

This is figure "b" from the old circa. 1990 Grenadier set "Fighting Men Champions" sculpted by Mark Copplestone. It is from the moment when Citadel figures were making their way to the US, influencing American design with their big pointy feet and British cartoony feel. I didn't have this particular figure back in the day, but I had Citadel figures that were very like him. I suppose it's the pointy feet, but I thought of him as sort of Italian Renaissance. The original WIP is here. I did most of the painting during the Memorial Day Weekend Paint Binge last week.

This figure came with a few old circa. 1990 lead minis from the Random Box O' Goodwill project. It was signed "Ridolfi" and "90" on the bottom, but remained a mystery until I ran into Mr. Ridolfi himself: My martial arts friends tell me that fighting with two sais is silly, like fighting with two shields. Oh well. Original WIP here. I finished him on the Memorial Day Weekend Paint Binge.

This is a vintage circa. 1990 figure from Metal Magic, "Witch with Cat" C1017c (thanks to Xherman1964 who helped identify it!) from their set C1017, "Female Wizards". I got it from the Box O' Goodwill project. The original WIP thread is here. I suspended work sometime in April and finished the figure in a speed paint over the Memorial Day weekend.

This is a fine little piece of Old School lead I got from the Box O' Goodwill project. It's a Ral Partha, looks like 2nd edition D&D vintage. The original set (so research tells me) had two magicians, a male and female dressed and posed similarly. I started him in March and finished him off quickly during the Memorial Day Weekend challenge. I can see little sloppy bits, but I think he's okay for tabletop use.

These are four of the classic old lead figures from the 1980 Grenadier "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" boxed set #5001, "Dungeon Explorers": the Ranger, the Bard, the Cleric "turning", and the Paladin. They are marvelously clunky and awkward. I never owned them back in the day, generally preferring Ral Partha and other more gracile brands than Grenadier's old standbys. It's been neat, though, to hear my old gaming friends recognize them. They are fairly simply sculpted, rather crude, with some bodged details. The right side of the bard's face was such a mess I painted him with an eyepatch, then added a little blue detail on his lute to match. The original WIP thread was here, but after a long hiatus I finished them during a speed paint on the Memorial Day Weekend Paint Binge.

These are two old lead goblins from the ancient boxed Grenadier set #5002, "Monsters". (That's what, 1980?) They are so crudely molded I couldn't figure out what they were at first. They had a ton of flash when I got them. The sculpts are hugely chunky and have some blobby areas. They also have some cute details, including a shield and scabbard held on with rope. The paint job is a little impressionistic. Okay, really impressionistic. The rust on the helmets is deliberate, at least. As they are classics I painted them in classic colors. Old style D&D goblins were orange, or tangerine, if you will, still far and away the best color for goblins. This was the original WIP thread, but I finished them rapidly during the Memorial Day Paint Binge weekend.

These are the original lead versions of the Wall of Ice. Painted up more as walls of crystal, since I don't think they ended up looking very ice like. I am happy with the results though.

Hello gals and guys, it's been too long since I shared anything. I've become somewhat obsessed with the licensed Advanced Dungeons & Dragons miniatures produced by Grenadier Models from 1980-1982. These are usually referred to as the "Gold Line." I never had a true appreciation for these sculpts as a kid, but with 35 years in the hobby. I've finally started to come around. I'm thinking of collecting the entire line now! I'm amassing quite a little collection. I will post up more pictures as models are finished as long as there is any interest. I'm sure that these models are older than some of the regular users, and I don't want to bore anyone. Thanks for looking. Comments and questions are always welcome!

So a few days ago, by purest luck and coincidence, I was wandering around on-line and came upon a miniature that I have always wanted and have already painted, a Kenzer Hackmaster Female Gnome Illusionist that I had been wanting to get a second copy of now for years and there it was at a wonderful price. Out there as well on the same web site were a few old TSR miniatures, and I grabbed some TSR elves and dwarves, only three bucks per set, so I snatched those up as well.

Hey, all. I posted before in the stripping guide but figured it'd be best not to eff it up anymore. I've started trying to strip some lead (supposedly pewter, but the models are lead, from my research) miniatures from the 80's. I was really excited about the pieces, and I got a great deal, but they were previously painted--a kid's work, from the looks of it. I've never dealt with this before, but I'm guessing they're enamel paints. They're very shiny and glossy to look out, very smooth to the touch. I was ready to blast in with acetone and strip the mothas down. Only it's not working! A couple pieces on a six-hour soak followed by good scrubbing with a tooth brush has yielded little result. I decided to give them longer, added in more miniatures and let them go overnight. twelve-hour and eighteen-hours scrubs have produced little to no mentionable results. The acetone's turned murky, so something's happening, but I'm not losing the paint in any significant way. My understanding was that the acetone should be quick and effective, so obviously I need to try something else, right? I'll keep giving the minis currently soaking in acetone more time. Should I periodically change the acetone out, though, or stick with what's in there? What else might be good for removing tough old paints? We're looking at the toughest of the tough, apparently. I know a lot of folks swear by Simple Green, so I picked a jug up and have started soaking several minis in it. My understanding is that it can take 24 hours to tell whether it's really doing it, though. So I'll probably just leave it until tomorrow morning (maybe check it tonight, just to see). Sound about right? This a good option under the circumstances? I've also got a can of lacquer thinner. I'm going to try it this afternoon, most likely. I'm good with handling chemicals (licensed for all manner of nasty stuff thanks to my job), but still not really excited about it. Feel like this is hedging toward the nuclear. I'd love advice about these methods, and I'm certainly open to other suggestions. Any wisdom y'all have is greatly appreciated.

Yay, finished in time to enter 2013 Dragon challenge with 6 hours to spare.... He is 2 lbs 2.5 ounces of lead, so pretty straining on the wrists. The WIP is here : https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/52564-teronus-grenadier-dragon-wip/ I will likely put him on a display base later. With a dwarf snack for size:

http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/47374-p-65-heavy-metal-miniatures-line-canceled/ I guess I'm not astonished. While cheaper than the lead-free pewter minis, the lead minis are still dealing with hazardous substances. And as far as cheaper than pewter alternatives go, it looks like Bones have lead beat all hollow.